The Exor-fist
by Skank Krystle
Summary: Parody of The Exorcist involving friends and random one-liners. My first fic ever.


The Exor-fist  
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The locale is an archaeological dig site deep in the  
arid desert of Northern Iraq - near the ancient town  
of Nineveh. An Arabic prayer chant is heard beyond an  
oblong, burnt-reddish sun. Workers dig inexorably with  
pick-axes through mounds of dirt to uncover ancient  
artifacts. A young boy in a red head-dress runs  
through the weaving, maze-like trenches to summon one  
of the supervisors. " Master, they found  
something...small pieces...At the base of the mound."  
Father Breck, scholarly Jesuit Catholic priest and  
archaeologist, slowly stood up and brushed the sweat  
from his brow. He hurried in a tired fashion to the  
area where they had un-earthed artifacts. Another  
archaeologist at the area rushed to him and told him  
excitedly that ancient objects have been unearthed  
during his search for evil, "Lamps, arrowheads,  
coins..."  
Breck inspects a small silver, Christian medallion  
depicting Mary and the baby Jesus and observes that it  
is unusual to find it buried in a pre-Christian  
location.  
"This is strange...Not of the same period." Breck then  
digs in a crevice near the Christian objects and  
discovers a small, greenish, gargoyle-like stone  
amulet or statuette. Closer inspection revealed that  
it was shaped like a greenish claw like fist. Breck  
gawked at it in puzzlement....he had never seen such a  
thing.  
In the Iraqi marketplace on the streets of Mosul, with  
a throbbing, drumming sound, the strain is evident as  
Breck's hand shakes when he takes his heart medicine.  
Iron workers clang their hammers on anvils near a  
red-hot burning furnace.  
Back in the curator's office, Breck eyes the Janus  
Zeal amulet. The curator looks up the identifing  
definition of the Janus Zeal amulet. His finger skims  
down the page of a book and rests it on a passage.  
"Evil against evil.", he read out loud. He turned to  
Breck and gave him a worried look. "What if we  
disturbed something....what if we woke the spirit  
up...."  
Ominously, the swinging pendulum of the clock behind  
him stops working. The curator knows Breck will be  
leaving to go home to the States.  
"I wish you didn't have to go. Stay and fight this  
thing. We unleashed something evil. It could destroy  
this entire country."  
Weary and exhausted, Breck replies, "There is  
something I must do. We did unleash something. But it  
is not here..." The curator looked at him confused.  
"It is in the states." Breck leaves the office and  
passes by prostrate Muslim worshippers and into a dark  
passageway. When he emerges in the narrow, sunlit  
street, he is nearly run down by a fast-moving,  
horse-drawn carriage carrying an old woman in a black  
droshky, worn over her face like a shroud.  
***  
Breck drove his jeep to an ancient temple ruins  
guarded by armed, white and black-garbed watchmen, he  
walks up to a full-sized stone statue of the demon  
Janus Zeal fist. He looked from his amulet to the full  
sized statue. Nearby, two dogs begin fighting and  
snarling at each other in the dust. He again has a  
premonition that the amulet is a concrete  
manifestation that something evil has been unearthed..  
As he confronts the demonic statue that has been  
called up for protection by the amulet's discovery,  
the wind blows dust over the scene as he feels all  
around him the presence of the devil.  
***  
Early morning traffic crossing the Potomac in  
Georgetown outside Washington, D.C.  
In one of the Georgetown houses a pale hand turns on a  
different kind of bright light. The hand belonging to  
Xell. Inside her bedroom, divorced mother and actress  
Xell MacNeil is working on lines in her latest script.  
She hears unsettling sounds from the attic similar to  
scratching. She investigates and follow the sounds to  
her 14-year old daughter Rach's bedroom where the  
young girl is sleeping. The covers are pulled back and  
the window is inexplicably wide open with fluttering  
curtains. Xell senses a certain coldness or presence  
in the room. Downstairs in the kitchen, Xell instructs  
her housekeeper to purchase traps for "rats in the  
attic."  
On the Georgetown University campus, Xell emerges from  
a movie-set trailer on the set of Warner Bros. Inc.  
The scene that is being filmed at the Catholic school  
dramatizes early 1970s student protest that threatens  
to tear down the historic stone walls of the  
university. Xell, a representative of the  
academic-adult population, questions the Famous  
director, Alita, about the unrealistic plot of  
adolescent counter-cultural turmoil. One of the  
curious onlookers among a crowd of students, a Jesuit  
priest from the university, named Father Vendetta,  
smiles amusedly after overhearing their conversation.  
A few moments later into the shoot, when Xell grabs a  
bullhorn and tells the rebellious students in the  
crowd, "If you want to effect any change, you have to  
do it within the system."  
Vendetta walking away from the crowd and the filming.  
He turns back to watch for a moment, and then  
continues his departure in serious thought.  
  
After the day's shoot is finished, Xell walks the  
leaf-covered street from the campus to her home. It is  
Halloween, and children run by in their masks and  
costumes. For a brief moment, a roaring black  
motorbike that passes behind her slightly drowns out  
the sounds of the yelling children. Two nuns trailing  
billowing black and white habits walk down a road in  
front of a brick wall. Now in her neighborhood, Xell  
turns and hears, from a distance, the priest Vendetta  
counseling a fellow priest.  
  
"There's not a day in my life that I don't feel like a  
fraud. Other priests, doctors, lawyers....I talk to  
them all. I don't know anyone who hasn't felt that."  
Priest Vendetta rises up from an underground  
stairwell, emerging into the noisy track area of the  
New York City subway where the tracks spew jets of  
steam. On the dirty, trash-littered platform of the  
subway station, he turns to hear a tattered, derelict  
drunk begging with an outstretched hand:  
"Father, could you help an old altar boy. I'm  
Cat'lick."  
Wrapped up in his own problems and unable to be  
charitable in this subway encounter, Father Vendetta  
turns away from the wretched man whose bearded, sweaty  
face is momentarily illuminated in flashes by the  
window lights of a passing subway.  
Father Vendetta continues making his way to visit his  
dying, sick mother, Mother Vegetes who lives in  
humble, pauper's conditions by herself in a derelict  
area of New York City.  
The street, lined with run-down housing, is populated  
with unruly kids, drunks, graffiti, and litter. After  
first stopping in his own room and reflecting on his  
past, he enters his Mama's room. As he carefully  
binds his mother's injured leg and then lights a  
cigarette for a smoke, he suggests moving her  
elsewhere, but she is a stoic, stubborn, Greek  
immigrant woman from the Old World, and she doesn't  
want to move.  
"Mama, I could take you somewhere where you'd be safe.  
You wouldn't be alone. There would be people around.  
You know, you wouldn't be sitting here listening to a  
radio."  
Vegetes first speaks in her native tongue, "...You  
understand me? This is my house and I'm not going no  
place. Venny, you're worried for something?"  
He sighs, "No, Mama."  
Vegetes reached out a cold pale hand and placed it on  
his cheek. "You're not happy. Tell me, what is the  
matter?"  
"Mama, I'm all right, I'm fine, really I am."  
***  
In the basement den, Rach - a bright, cheerful,  
ordinary pre-teen amuses herself with arts-and-crafts  
materials and paint. She creates an orange, bird-like  
puppet figure.  
Her mother discovers a dusty OUIJA board that Rach  
earlier found in a closet. Lonely and without friends  
of her own age, and without a partner to play  
ping-pong in the den, Rach has amused herself by  
playing with the board.  
Xell watched her daughter play with the board...."Wait  
a minute, you need two people to play..."  
Rach looked up at her mother annoyed. "No ya don't. I  
do it all the time by myself."  
Xell sighed and smiled down at her daughter. "Well  
let's both play."  
One of her imaginary friends, 'Captain Howdy' spins  
the planchette from under Xell's hands.  
Xell, not really surprized at the sudden movement asks  
softly, " You really don't want me to play, huh?"  
Rach replies with a disapointed look on her face, "No,  
I do. Captain Howdy said no."  
Xell, now confused asks, "Captain who?"  
Rach replies with frustration that her mother is not  
aware of him yet., "Captain Howdy."  
Xell tries to learn more of her daughter's imaginary  
friend, "Who's Captain Howdy?"  
Rach sighs, "You know, I make the questions and he  
does the answers."  
Later that night as a smiling, loving Rach is tucked  
into bed by her mother and they share an intimate  
conversation. She is reading a recent PHOTOPLAY  
Magazine with a red-banner cover story: "Big Trouble  
In the MacNeil Marriage! The Night Howard Walked Out  
On His Wife."  
The colorful cover photo depicts Xell with her  
daughter. After taking the magazine away, Xell teases  
her daughter about her impending maturity since she is  
on the verge of becoming an adult.  
"Look Rach, why are you reading that stuff?"  
Rach answered sweetly, "Because I like it."  
But Rach, honey, It's not even a good picture of you.  
You look so mature."  
Rach's birthday was coming on Sunday and she would be  
a ripe, pubescent 13. And they planned for the special  
sightseeing outing. As an undercutting aside, Rach  
maturely suggests having her mother's director friend,  
Alita accompany them with misleading ideas developing  
in her head, she promotes a match-making liaison  
between her mother and Alita.  
"You can bring Alita if you like...Well, you like  
her...You're gonna marry her, aren't you?  
Xell was shocked. "Oh God, are you kidding me? Marry  
Alita! Don't be silly. Of course not. Where'd you ever  
get an idea like that? The two of us are both straight  
women. We would never do such a thing.  
Rach smiled thoughtfully, "But ya like her."  
Xell rolled her eyes, "Of course I like her. I like  
pizzas too, but I'm not gonna marry one. We work  
together. And Alita already is dating Gohan.  
Rach pouted, "You don't like her like Daddy?"  
Xell was obviously getting annoyed at the  
conversation, "Rach, I love your Daddy. I'll always  
love your Daddy, honey. ok? But Daddy was a man. And  
Alita is a woman. We are both straight and I do not  
believe in the ways of homosexuality, ok? Honey, I  
don't want you to stay up late anymore and watch the  
Ellen Degenerous Show.  
Rach smirked slyly, "Well, I heard  
differently....about ALita likeing guys only."  
Xell smirked back, "Oh you did. What did you hear?  
Huh?"  
Rach smiled, "I don't know. I just thought."  
"Well, you didn't think so good, Rach."  
Rach responded in a hurt manner, "How do you know?"  
"Cause Alita and I are just friends. ok? Really.  
***  
A noisy bar environment where a jukebox plays an  
Allman Brothers Band rock tune favorite, 'Ramblin'  
Man.' Father Vendetta carries two frothy beer glasses  
to a table where he is joined by his friend, Mewmew  
who was president of the university. Clearly  
juxtaposed with the atmosphere of the dark drinking  
establishment peopled with 'rebellious' students, the  
young priest finds himself in a troubling situation,  
heavily weighted down by counseling his fellow priests  
who feel they are losing their vocation. In despair,  
inner conflict and guilt, he is worried about his own  
burdens such as his lonely mother and his own loss of  
faith.  
"It's my mother, Mew. She's alone. I never should have  
left her. At least in New York, I'd be near, I'd be  
closer."  
"You should look into a transfer, Ven."  
Vendetta put down his glass of beer and stared into  
the bottom of it, "I need re-assignment, Mew. I want  
out of this job. It's wrong. It's no good."  
Mewmew was shocked at his statement, "You're the best  
we've got."  
Vendetta scoffed at this, "Spank, not really. It's  
more than psychiatry, and you know that Mew. Some of  
their problems come down to faith, their vocation and  
meaning of their lives, and I can't cut it anymore. I  
need out. I'm unfit. I think I've lost my faith, Mew.  
***  
Autumn leaves from the bare trees swirl in the wind.  
Exasperated by an insensitive lack of regard and her  
own despair over the breakup of the family, Xell  
berates and swears about her husband for failing to  
call Rach on her birthday from his hotel in Rome. She  
hasn't been able to reach him by long-distance for  
twenty minutes and she becomes acutely distressed, "Oh  
circuits, my ass! He doesn't give a shit...Operator,  
don't tell me there's no answer... Would you try it  
again please and let it ring...Operator, I've given  
you the number four times...I've been on this fucking  
line for twenty minutes!"  
Rach stands in her room with her ear at the door  
listening to her tormented mother, after hearing more  
than enough of her cursing mother speaking to her  
uncaring father, she mutely retreats to her bed where  
she unties her shoe.  
***  
Early the next morning, Xell finds that Rach has  
joined her in bed, explaining that she is not able to  
sleep, "My bed was shaking. I can't get to sleep."  
Rach's mother goes to investigate more mysterious  
sounds that she hears up in the attic. Finding her way  
around in the dark with a lit candle, Xell discovers  
the traps are untriggered and empty yet the digging  
noises can still be heard. After being shocked out of  
her wits by her housekeeper's sudden appearance and  
her flaming candlelight, he confirms what she has  
found, "No rats."  
***  
Inside the corridor of Bellevue psychiatric hospital  
in New York City, psychiatrist-priest Father Vendetta  
has been summoned by his uncle, Tenchi because of his  
sick mother's hospitalization. Distressed that she was  
brought to a mental hospital without his permission,  
he notices deranged, comatose, vacant-eyed women in  
the hallway and in the psychiatric ward, they exhibit  
the physical and behavioral symptoms of serious  
psychological problems. His uncle, Tenchi generates  
more guilt by noting how Vendetta's choice of  
occupation was detrimental to her welfare. His  
decision to become a priest rather than enter private  
practice as a psychiatrist left her destitute, "If you  
wasn't a priest, you'd be a famous psychiatrist  
now...Your mother... she'd be living in a penthouse  
instead of a ..."  
As Father Vendetta enters the locked ward and walks  
through to see his mother, the other patients react  
with agitation and grab at the spiritual figure's  
clothing. With tears in her eyes, the haggard Vegetes  
blames her son for her 'imprisonment': "Venny, why  
would you do this to me, Venny?" Her thin, frail arms  
are restrained by straps on the bed. With anger and  
rage, she struggles to withdraw from him and turn her  
head away from his comforting hands. After their  
visit, Vendetta beseeches his uncle to move her to a  
different hospital: "Couldn't you put her someplace  
else?" But that is an impractical solution: "Like  
what? A private hospital? Who got the money for that,  
Venny?"  
***  
A few nights later, Xell MacNeil throws a big dinner  
party at her Prospect Street house. Prominent people  
are among the guests such as Alita and her boyfriend  
Gohan, an astronaut guest known as Guru, and a  
suspected Nazi collaborator named Khaki. Rach is  
giggling and happy while mingling among the  
party-goers. Xell asks one of her friends, Father  
Sinko and his date Mina, and Mewmew and her date. She  
learns from Mewmew that her date is Father Vendetta,  
"a psychiatric counselor. He had a pretty rough knock  
last night, poor guy. His mother passed away. She was  
living by herself and I guess she was dead a couple of  
days before they found her."  
***  
Rach is already in bed asleep before the party is  
over. But shortly later, Rach comes downstairs and  
appears during a piano-gathering and songfest. She  
enters the room in her nightgown, and trance-like  
turns to the astronaut, Guru who will soon be launched  
into space, "You're gonna die up there." Rach laughs  
evily and urinates in front of everyone. Embarrassed  
and confused, Xell takes her daughter into her arms  
and apologizes to Guru and the rest of the guests,  
"Rach, oh my God, honey. Honey? Whatsa matter? I'm  
sorry, she's been sick. She didn't know what she was  
saying."  
Xell helps Rach to retreat upstairs and gives her a  
hot bath while comforting her. Rach is as puzzled by  
her own behavior as is Xell. Xell reassures Rach that  
she is probably upset because of all the changes she  
has experienced in the last few months like her  
father's departure and erratic contact, the new job  
for Xell, the new town. Rach is promised that  
everything will be all right,  
"What made you say that, Rach? Do you know  
sweetheart?"  
Rach dries herself off, "Mother? What's wrong with  
me?"  
Xell hugs her daughter tight, "It's just like the  
doctor said. It's nerves, and that's all. OK? You just  
take your pills and you'll be fine, really. OK?"  
Returning down the stairs long after the party has  
ended, Xell finds her housekeeper scrubbing the stains  
from the rug. She turns back when she hears Rach  
screaming in her room and calling for her help. As  
Xell rushes to her daughter's closed bedroom door an  
electric, candle-shaped light bulb flickers in the  
hallway. Xell's face registering a horrified, shocking  
reaction after entering Rach's room. Rach's bed is  
racked with violent convulsions. Flopping around on  
the top of the bed, the young girl frantically calls  
out, "Make it stop! Make it stop!" Xell throws herself  
on top of Rach on the wildly bucking bed which bounces  
up and down on the floor, there is a cacophony of  
deafening noise equaling all the other loud, grating  
noises previously heard.  
***  
Father Sinko strides down the corridor of the Jesuit  
residence hall at Georgetown University, peering into  
one of the bedrooms where students are smoking,  
gambling at cards, and drinking. After knocking on  
Vendetta's door and entering, he brings the priest a  
bottle of Chivas Regal Scotch Whiskey, joking that he  
stole it from the college president. "He shouldn't  
drink. It tends to set a bad example. I figured I  
saved him from a big temptation." Vendetta is  
tormented by guilt and anguished remorse for being  
absent when his mother died, and he begins skeptically  
doubting his decision to pursue a career as a priest.  
Sinko encourages Vendetta to lie back, take off his  
shoes, and go to sleep.  
As Father Vendetta begins to dream after the lights  
are turned out, a montage of dream-like images passes  
and flashes through his consciousness, mixing  
momentary sights of his mother and her ascent and  
descent into death with all the surrealistic images  
taken from previous actions components accompanying  
Father Breck in Iraq. The Christian medal, now  
free-falls through the air above a richly-textured  
Iraqi tapestry, a ferocious, growling desert dog runs,  
Vendetta's mother stares straight ahead, the pendulum  
of the curator's clock swings, Vegetes emerges from an  
underground subway in New York City, Vendetta waves  
from a traffic island toward his mother, the mother  
calls out but doesn't see or heed her son, a  
ghoulish, ghostly-white demonic face appears, Vendetta  
frantically pursues his mother across traffic on a  
busy street, and she descends back into the subway  
entrance. The medal drops on the hard, stone  
Georgetown steps.  
***  
Xell seeks medical help and treatment for her  
daughter, but Rach resists violently, "I don't want  
it!" She is held down and injected with a sedative by  
a team of doctors. The girl spits and curses at one of  
the doctors: "You pizza eating hippie!"  
***  
Concurrent with the ministrations of modern medicine,  
Father Vendetta, in the University chapel, prays in  
memory of his deceased mother: "Remember also, Oh  
Lord, thy servant Vegetes who has gone before us on  
the side of faith and sleeps the sleep of peace."  
***  
Dr. Klein delivers a diagnosis to Xell. He explains  
Rach's strange afflictions and seizures are due to a  
physical problem, a brain disorder.  
"It's a symptom of a type of disturbance in the  
chemical-electrical activity of the brain. In the case  
of your daughter, in the temporal lobe - it's up here  
- in the lateral part of the brain. It's rare, but it  
does cause bizarre hallucinations and usually just  
before a convulsion...the shaking of the bed. It's  
doubtless due to muscular spasms."  
Xell doubts that her daughter's uncontrollable spasms  
and body movements caused the bed to buck so  
violently. The doctor insists her shaking is due to a  
lesion in her brain,  
"Xell, the problem with your daughter is not her bed,  
it's her brain."  
Xell looked distressed, "So, uhm, what causes  
this...?"  
"A lesion. A lesion in the temporal lobe. It's a kind  
of seizure disorder."  
"Now look Doc, I really don't understand how her whole  
personality could change."  
Dr. Klein sighed annoyed, "The temporal lobe is very  
common...It could last for days or even weeks. It  
isn't rare to find destructive, even criminal  
behavior. Don't be alarmed. If it's a lesion, in a way  
she's fortunate. All we have to do is remove the  
scar."  
***  
Rach is wheeled on a flat table into a testing area  
for more examinations designed to unravel the  
mysteries of her malady. In a long, purposely  
drawn-out, excruciatingly-torturous sequence with  
markedly sexual overtones, Rach is prepared by medical  
assistants for an arteriogram. She is placed on a  
leather backing, readied for a blood pressure reading,  
and her shoulders are bared. Electrodes are stuck to  
her upper arms. One of the male medical technicians,  
garbed like a priest paints her pale neck with a "cold  
and wet" square of cotton dipped in dark brown iodine.  
He tests a syringe by squirting fluid from its sharp  
point, and then 'sticks' her in the neck with it to  
create a small incision. She holds back from squirming  
and whimpering as he slightly pierces her flesh. With  
another sharp instrument taken from a trayful of  
Inquisitional-type torture devices, he warns Rach not  
to move when she feels "some pressure." He inserts the  
second device into the incision mark, pushes it in,  
and then releases the cap on the instrument as blood  
spurts, orgasmically, from the opening in Rach's neck.  
  
The 'deflowering' examination is not complete for the  
helpless young girl - blood flows through tubes as her  
chin is taped to the table to keep her stationary.  
More pieces of medical machinery are wheeled to each  
side of her head. The lights are dimmed, and she is  
told to "look up." The positioning of a scanner  
produces a cross-shaped shadow across Rach's forehead.  
A button is pushed, causing a tremendous  
knocking/pounding sound - Rach cringes as pain  
envelopes her face. The screen turns white for an  
instant. A full series of X-rays illustrating various  
death's head angles of Rach's skull are being examined  
by Dr. Tanney on a white, photo-examination table -  
loud, whirring gears deliver each set of photographic  
negative plates for viewing. Tanney pronounces his  
diagnosis to Dr. Klein as they both examine a  
full-screen side view of her skull: "There's just  
nothing there. No vascular displacement at all." To  
their surprise, they find nothing physically wrong  
with her.  
***  
Xell calls the two doctors at the lab to urgently  
summon them to her Prospect Street home. The ringing  
of the doorbell at the MacNeil home overlaps their  
departure from the hospital - and signals the upcoming  
terror. Xell's secretary/assistant Pixie rushes down  
the stairs to answer the door and let the doctors in.  
From behind, Rach's hysterical, despairing screams. A  
hand-held camera tracks in front of the group as they  
hurriedly rush upstairs, down the corridor, and up to  
Rach's sealed bedroom door. Pixie announces: "Xell!  
Doctors!" and they are admitted. Within the bedroom,  
the site in the room once again causes a registering  
of fear on everyone's faces.  
Rach's upper torso is violently being whipped and  
thrown back and forth on the bed, battering her body  
as it slams into the mattress. She screams: "Oh  
please, Mother, make it stop! It's hurting!" Then she  
is tossed upwards and bounces up and down. Her  
uncontrollable seizures are accompanied by low  
gutteral growls, almost animalistic. Her throat below  
her chin bubbles out. When one of the doctors reaches  
for Rach on the bed, she slaps him back-handed across  
the face, knocking him into the door and onto the  
floor. Her physically-repulsive voice warns, "Keep  
away! The sow is mine!" She flails and thrashes around  
on the bed, afflicted and possessed by some fantastic  
force.  
While she is held tight and restrained, a doctor  
removes another syringe and injects her with a  
sedative to calm her down. Pixie drags Xell from the  
scene to remove her from the horrifying cries of her  
daughter. When the bedroom door is slammed, there is  
an eerie quiet in the corridor. Pixie and Xell sit  
huddled together. The doctors Tanney and Klein emerge  
from Rach's now-quiet bedroom, "She's heavily sedated.  
She'll probably sleep through tomorrow." Xell demands  
answers from them: "What was going on in there? How  
could she fly off the bed like that?" They are still  
convinced of a physical ailment and propose further  
tests.  
"Pathological states can induce abnormal strength.  
Accelerated motor performance. Now, for example, say a  
90 pound woman sees her child pinned under the wheel  
of a truck. Runs out and lifts the wheels a half a  
foot up off the ground - you've heard the story - same  
thing here. Same principle, I mean."  
Xell askes confused, "So what's wrong with her?"  
The doctors look at eachother, "We still think the  
temporal lobe."  
Xell yells hystericaly, "Oh what are you talking  
about, for Christ's sakes. Did you see her or not?  
She's acting like she's fucking out of her mind,  
psychotic, like a... split personality or ..."  
Calmly the Doctor answered, "There haven't been more  
than a hundred authentic cases of so-called split  
personality. Now I know the temptation is to leap to  
psychiatry. But any reasonable psychiatrist would  
exhaust the somatic possibilities first. What we  
missed in the EEG and the arteriograms could  
conceivably turn up there. At least, it would  
eliminate certain other possibilities."  
***  
As Xell drives home that evening with her headlights  
beaming through the dark, she passes red-lighted  
emergency vehicles at the base of the Prospect Street  
stairs. The lights in her kitchen flicker and then go  
off as she answers the loud-ringing phone. Upstairs,  
she finds Rach asleep in her freezing cold bedroom  
The windows are wide open and the wind-blown curtains  
are billowing outward. She covers Rach with blankets  
and then proceeds downstairs in a furious mood. Xell  
lambasts Pixie for leaving Rach alone with her windows  
wide open. Pixie explains, as the doorbell rings  
incessantly another signal of approaching doom, that  
when she went to get Rach's thorazine medication,  
Alita remained to stay with her. She apologizes,  
"I should have known better. I'm sorry."  
Xell mutter flattly, "Yeah, I guess you should have."  
Ryu, who works with Xell and Alita as assistant  
director, is let in from the front porch, bringing bad  
news. Alita was found dead at the bottom of a long  
flight of stairs just outside Regan's bedroom window,  
"I suppose you heard."  
Xell asked, "Heard what?"  
Ryu was surprized, "You haven't heard. Alita's dead.  
She must have been drunk. She fell down from the top  
of the steps right outside. By the time she hit M  
Street, she broke her neck."  
Xell turns away in horror, shocked by the revelation.  
She pounds on the wall with her fists.  
***  
"When I touch your forehead, open your eyes." Rach's  
face is being lightly touched by a psychiatrist  
Starcloud, one of the new practitioners who begins  
groping for a more accurate assessment of Rach's  
problems. She has been put in an hypnotic trance for  
questioning by the sweet-voiced psychiatrist.  
Starcloud, "How old are you?"  
Rach, "Twelve."  
Starcloud, "Is there someone inside you?"  
Rach, "Sometimes."  
Starcloud, "Who is it?"  
Rach, "I don't know."  
Starcloud, "Is it Captain Howdy?"  
Rach, "I don't know."  
Starcloud, "Is it Foofie No-No?"  
Rach, "I don't know."  
Starcloud, " If I ask him to tell me, will you let him  
answer?"  
Rach, "No!"  
Starcloud, " Why not?"  
Rach, "I'm afraid."  
Starcloud, "If he talks to me, I think he'll leave  
you. Do you want him to leave you?"  
Rach, "Yes. His name is Janus Zeal."  
Starcloud, "I'm speaking to 'Janis Zeal' inside of  
Rach now. If you are there, you too are hypnotized and  
must answer all my questions. Come forward and answer  
me now."  
A black and white framed photograph of Rach  
inexplicably falls forward off the mantle. Rach's face  
contorts and a low, wolf-like growl emanates from her  
mouth. The hypnotist continues, thinking he is  
speaking to 'Janus Zeal' inside her, "Are you the  
person inside of Rach? Who are you?" To abortively end  
the session, Rach slams her hand into Starcloud's  
crotch and crushes his genitals. Then her fury rises  
as she falls on top of the hapless examiner and she  
must be dragged and held off.  
***  
Middle-aged detective Lt. Spark of homicide, assigned  
to the case following Alita's death, questions Father  
Vendetta about witchcraft, already knowing that he had  
written an authoritative paper on the subject "from  
the psychiatric end." Spark suspects ritualistic  
overtones - Alita was possibly killed by having her  
head twisted around in a ritualistic black-magic  
murder. The detective suggests that the priest  
identify any of those he counsels who might be capable  
of committing the murder.  
***  
At the Barringer Clinic and Foundation, psychiatrists  
conclude that Rach's symptoms are evidence of a rare  
disorder hardly seen anymore except in primitive  
cultures. Rach, with cuts marks on her face and  
dehydrated lips, struggles in a clinic bed, strapped  
down like Vegetes was earlier at Bellevue. Her  
ailments are similar to a form of possession, "Quite  
frankly, we really don't know much about it at all  
except that it starts with a conflict or a guilt and  
it leads to the patients' delusions that his body has  
been invaded by some alien intelligence - a spirit if  
you will." Xe;; despairs, refusing "to lock her up in  
some god-damned asylum." She is fed-up with their  
"bullshit" and medical-babble.  
Because Xell has no specific religious beliefs, she is  
told that religious counsel - an exorcism - may be  
performed to rid Rach of her possession,  
"There is one outside chance for a cure. I think of it  
as shock treatment - as I said, it's a very outside  
chance...Have you ever heard of exorcism? Well, it's a  
stylized ritual in which the rabbi or the priest try  
to drive out the so-called invading spirit. It's been  
pretty much discarded these days except by the  
Catholics who keep it in the closet as a sort of an  
embarrassment, but uh, it has worked. In fact,  
although not for the reasons they think, of course.  
It's purely a force of suggestion. The victim's belief  
in possession is what helped cause it, so in that same  
way, a belief in the power of exorcism can make it  
disappear."  
Xell answers him uneasily, "You're telling me that I  
should take my daughter to a witch doctor? Is that  
it?"  
Rach is brought home from the clinic, while Lt. Spark  
surveys the Alita death scene at the foot of the  
stairs. As Xell tucks Rach in her bed, she discovers a  
crucifix under her pillow. Dramatically timed, Spark  
also finds a small clay, claw like fist talisman near  
the steps. At the top of the stairs, Spark looks up at  
the MacNeil's bedroom window. Spark meets with Xell  
for coffee, finding ominous signs in his investigation  
and immediately alarming Rach's nervous mother. It  
dawns on her that it was Rach who had killed Alita,  
Spark, "It's strange. The deceased comes to visit -  
stays only 20 minutes. And leaves all alone a very  
sick girl. And speaking plainly, Mrs. MacNeil, it  
isn't likely she would fall from a window. Besides, a  
fall wouldn't do to her neck what we found, except  
maybe one chance in a thousand. Nope, my hunch, my  
opinion - she was killed by a very powerful man -  
point one. And the fracturing of her skull - point  
two. Plus the various other things we mentioned would  
make it very probable, probable, not certain, that the  
deceased was killed and then pushed from your  
daughter's window. But nobody was in the room, except  
your daughter. So how can this be? It could be one  
way. If someone came calling between the time Pixie  
left and the time you returned..."  
  
Xell knows that bedridden Rach was the only one in the  
house with Alita just before his death. Spark realizes  
sculpted fists in the MacNeil house match the one he  
found at the base of the stone stairway: "Your  
daughter? She's the artist?" After Spark leaves, Xell  
ineffectually bolts the front door behind him.  
***  
From upstairs in Rach's bedroom, Xell hears grotesque  
sounds, crashes, and screams. She runs up the stairs  
towards the door - it opens and she sees 45 rpm  
records, books, and stuffed animals being hurled at  
the tightly-closed window. In an obscene gesture  
simulating boxing, a horribly-disfigured Rach  
repeatedly punches herslef in the chest, as she  
bellows obscenities in the Devil's voice, "Let the  
fist beat you! Let the fist beat you!"  
Xell grabs her daughter's super-strong arm and tussles  
with her for control of the fist. Rach punches her  
mother with a violent blow, sending her backwards  
across the bedroom floor. With her telekinetic power,  
Rach moves a chair against the door to bar the way of  
Pixie and others, and she sends a tall wooden bureau  
across the floor toward her mother. As a bloody-faced  
Rach sits on her bed, she spins her pelvis backwards  
180 degreesin demonic pelvic thrusts, threatening in a  
deep malevolent voice as she imitates Alita's voice to  
taunt Xell about her murder, "Do you know what she  
did? Your evil daughter? OBEY THE FIST!"  
***  
On a cold autumn day, Xell stands alone on a  
footbridge, waiting to meet Father Vendetta who has  
been recommended by Father Sinko. She abandons her  
original skepticism about resorting to exorcism by  
taking her problem to Vendetta, believing that a  
religious ritual may be her last hope - to save her  
daughter and drive out the devil. She quizzes him  
about his background: "How did a shrink ever get to be  
a priest?" After avoiding the subject for a while, she  
suddenly asks: "How do you go about getting an  
exorcism?" He stops short during their walk and asks  
her to repeat her question: "Baken powder?" Vendetta  
doesn't believe in exorcisms in the twentieth century  
and is inclined to doubt demonic possession,  
"Well the first thing - I'd have to get into a time  
machine and get back to the 16th century...Well, it  
just doesn't happen any more, Mrs. MacNeil...since we  
learned about mental illness, paranoia,  
schizophrenia...Since the day I joined the Jesuits,  
I've never met one priest who has performed an  
exorcism. Not one."  
Xell begs, through choking sobbing, that somebody  
"very close" to her is "probably possessed and needs  
an exorcism. Father Vendetta, it's my little girl." He  
tries to dissuade her, arguing that the Catholic  
Church insists on proof that the devil is really in a  
person: "Then that's all the more reason to forget  
about exorcism...To begin with, it could make things  
worse. Secondly, the church before it approves an  
exorcism conducts an investigation to see if it's  
warranted. That takes time...I need church approval  
and that's rarely given." On the other hand, he  
reluctantly agrees to see her daughter "as a  
psychiatrist," believing that Rach's horrible descent  
into hell is a psychiatric illness. But Xell is  
completely fed up with psychiatrists,  
"Oh, not a psychiatrist. She needs a priest. She's  
already seen every fucking psychiatrist in the world  
and they sent me to you. Now you're gonna send me back  
to them? Jesus Christ! Won't somebody help me?...Can't  
you help her, just help her?"  
***  
Vendetta is brought to Rach's bedroom to see and talk  
to Mrs. MacNeil's daughter. Awful sounds emanate from  
her bedroom as they climb the stairs. In the corridor,  
The housekeeper explains the child-monster's anger,  
"It wants no straps." When Vendetta enters, the girl  
is strapped to a padded four-poster bed. Her face is  
cut, her hair matted, her eyes wild-looking, and she  
has a plastic tube taped to one nostril. The grotesque  
girl speaks with a disgusting, low-pitched growl  
coming straight from hell.  
Vendetta: Hello, Rach. I'm a friend of your mothers.  
I'd like to help you.  
Rach: Why not loosen the straps then?  
Vendetta: I'm afraid you might hurt yourself Rach.  
Rach: I'm not Rach.  
Vendetta: I see. Well then, let's introduce ourselves.  
I'm Father Vendetta.  
Rach: I'm the devil. Now kindly undo these straps!  
Vendetta: If you're the devil, why not make the straps  
disappear?  
Rach: That's much too vulgar a display of power,  
Vendetta.  
Vendetta: Where's Rach?  
Rach: In here - with us.  
Karras: Show me a Regan and I'll loosen one of the  
straps.  
Rach: Your mother's in here with us 'Venny'. Would you  
like to leave a message? I'll see that she gets it.  
Vandetta: If that's true, then you must know my  
mother's name. What is it? What is it?  
  
  
Vendetta approaches closer for an answer, Rach lurches  
forward on the bed and spews cheese whiz from her  
mouth in a single projectile stream directly into his  
face. The thick cheese goo sticks to his face and  
clothing.  
***  
Xell washes and irons the priest's clothing, as he  
surveys some of Rach's artwork in the basement, again  
reluctant to get further involved and resort to  
exorcism: "Look, I'm only against the possibility of  
doing your daughter more harm than good...I can't do  
it. I need evidence that the church would accept as  
signs of possession...like her speaking in a language  
she's never known or studied...Look, your daughter  
doesn't say she's a demon. She says she's the devil  
himself. Now if you've seen as many psychotics as I  
have, you realize that's the same thing as saying  
you're Napoleon Bonaparte. You asked me what I think  
is best for your daughter. Six months, under  
observation, in the best hospital you can find." His  
advice is that she needs counseling rather than  
cleansing. Xell challenges the skeptical Vendetta to  
persuade him to believe that the child-monster  
upstairs is genuinely inhabited by a demon,  
"I'm telling you that that thing upstairs isn't my  
daughter. Now I want you to tell me that you know for  
a fact that there's nothing wrong with my daughter  
except in her mind. YOU TELL ME YOU KNOW FOR A FACT  
THAT AN EXORCISM WOULDN'T DO ANY GOOD! YOU TELL ME  
THAT!"  
Vendetta decides to study Rach's condition,  
unimpressed by her physical manifestations, but amazed  
at her telepathic knowledge that his mother died. Rach  
mocks him as he sets up equipment to tape record the  
many strange voices that seem to be coming from inside  
her:  
Rach: What an excellent day for an exorcism.  
Vendetta: You'd like that?  
Rach: Intensely.  
Vendetta: But wouldn't that drive you out of Rach?  
Rach: It would bring us together.  
Vendetta: You and Rach.  
Rach: You and us.  
Both a Jesuit priest and a psychiatrist by training,  
Vendetta goes about various tests to determine whether  
Rach's case of demon possession is authentic. He finds  
her powers of telekinesis unusual, but random.  
Remarkably, the demon uses Rach as a mouthpiece to  
speak Latin and French. Sprinkling 'holy water' over  
Rach in a cross-like pattern causes the Rach-demon to  
squirm and squeal with extreme fear at the Christian  
artifact: "It burns!" Diabolical sounds emanate from  
her mouth - growling dogs, squealing pigs, rasping  
groans, and foul language. Later, Vendetta tells Xell  
that it wasn't 'holy water' but ordinary 'tap water' -  
"Holy water's blessed, and that doesn't help support a  
case of a possession." Xell confesses, in a whisper,  
Rach's complicity in Alita's murder: "She pushed her  
out her window."  
Vendeta takes his tape recording to a sound expert -  
who after playing it declares that it is English in  
reverse: "It's a language all right. It's English...in  
reverse." Rach's deep voice calls out the priest's  
name "Janus Zeal" over and over again. Vendetta is  
again summoned to the MacNeil house and brought  
upstairs by Pixie. She secretly confides: "I don't  
want Xell to see this." With a flashlight, they creep  
into the room - a freezing cold place where the  
sleeping Rach has reduced the temperature at will.  
Pixie peels back the blankets and opens Rach's  
nightshirt - the skin on Rach's abdomen has raised  
welts that form scarring words: "SPRINKLIES." All that  
is left of the real Rach pleads for relief.  
Persuaded and half-convinced that an exorcism must be  
performed to scourge the offending demon, Vendetta  
requests permission from his superior to proceed with  
Rach's case: "...I have made a prudent judgment that  
it meets the conditions set down in the ritual." It is  
recommended that an older priest, someone with prior  
experience of an exorcism, be chosen as the exorcist -  
"maybe someone who has spent time in foreign  
missions." Archaeologist-priest Father Breck (who has  
returned from the site dig three or four months  
earlier and is writing a book in Woodstock) is chosen  
to be the skilled exorcist, and Vendetta is appointed  
as his assistant. To provide a foreshadowing of the  
danger involved in casting out demons, it is  
remembered that ten to twelve years earlier while  
touring in Africa, Breck conducted an exorcism that  
lasted months: "...heard it damn near killed him."  
[Ironically, Breck's inadvertent unleashing of the  
demon in Iraq caused the crisis in the first place.]  
Appropriately, Breck is summoned to perform the  
exorcism and battle the devil.  
On a dark foggy night, Father Breck arrives by cab at  
the MacNeil home. He stands motionless under the  
streetlight in the swirling smoke and looks up at  
Rach's window - a shaft of bright light emanates down  
in a broad swatch. A full-closeup of Rach's face -  
with cat-like eyes, senses an old enemy. Breck's dark  
silhouette appears at the doorway. As breck enters the  
house and greets Vendetta, the dark spirit residing in  
the girl cries a long, drawn-out curse: "Janus Zeal!"  
Vendetta first wishes to explain the manifestations  
and background of the case, but Breck wants to begin  
immediately.  
"Oh I get to put a show on for you!", Rach hisses.  
"It's just a jumps to the left and a step to the  
right...with your hands on your hips you bring your  
knees in tight...but ITS THE PELVIC THRUST THAT REALL  
DRIVES YOU IN-SA-A-A-A-A-ANE!" Vendetta, Breck, Pixie  
and Xell all found themselves doing the Time warp at  
Rach's telekenisis. They suddenly stopped.  
***  
With special gifts and experience, the austere Breck  
prepares the younger priest with cautious advice. They  
must avoid conversations with the demon and not listen  
to the demon's voice because "the demon is a liar and  
would like to confuse us. But he will also mix lies  
with the truth to attack us. The attack is  
psychological, Vendetta, and powerful...Remember that.  
Do not listen." Father Vendetta begins explaining  
Rach's three different personalities - Father Breck  
rudely explains that there is only one manifestation  
inside Regan - Janus Zeal.  
"I think it might be helpful if I gave you some  
background on the different personalities Rach has  
manifested. So far, I'd say there seem to be three.  
She's convinced..."  
Breck answered sotfly, "There is only one."  
The two men enter Rach's ice-cold bedroom, prepared to  
do spiritual battle. Garbed in priestly outfits, they  
also bring weapons of the spirit - holy water, holy  
texts, and a crucifix. Janus Zeal's voice curses at  
Father Breck with the foulest epithet ever,  
"Stick your c--k up her ass, you mother-f--king  
worthless c--ks--ker! And light me a joint now!"  
Breck splashes her body with holy water and yells  
back: "Be silent!" Rach screams and squirms away,  
twisting in pain as if burned by the sanctified water.  
They begin to conduct a RITE OF EXORCISM from red  
prayer books and recite the Lord's Prayer. The  
child-monster spews cheese whiz onto Breck's face.  
Breck rubs it off, "I just ate thank you".  
As they desperately pray and the temperature drops in  
the room, Rach reacts with pelvis rolling, more  
writhing, shrieking and vicious growling, sprinkled  
with more obscene vulgarities, "OBEY THE FIST!" The  
demon inside Rach struggles with her arm restraints  
and bucks the bed legs off the floor. The entire bed  
levitates into mid-air, pulled upwards by Rach's  
super-human strength. Rach's flopping head is  
momentarily replaced with the ghoulish, vampirish,  
white-faced image seen earlier in Vendetta's  
nightmare.  
The monstrous battle continues as the bed sinks back  
in place. Rach's horrible, purple tongue darts in and  
out of her mouth. As Merrin places his purple cloth  
stole on her to bless her, more cheese whiz oozes out  
of her mouth to defile it. Janus Zeal fights with the  
holy men by violently opening and closing cabinet  
doors. Reaching his own limits, Breck curses the  
demon,  
" I cast you out! Unclean spirit in the name of our  
Lord Jesus Christ."  
The walls and ceiling crack, the intravenous medical  
bottle apparatus crashes to the floor in pieces, and  
the bathroom door slams and splits as Breck continues  
to cast out the demon for possession of her body and  
soul. He traces crosses on her temple: "Be gone from  
this creature of God. Be gone, in the name of the  
Father and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. With this  
sign of the holy cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, who  
lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit."  
She sits upright and her pelvic turns a full circle,  
360 degrees. Rach's face, in a full face closeup,  
becomes eerily animated. The demonic beast accuses  
Vendetta of murder: "You killed your mother. You left  
her alone to die." The room shakes and the straps on  
Rach's wrists rip open. Her eyes roll demonically  
backwards. Her body levitates off the bed, and her  
fully-extended body hovers in mid-air. Breck  
interprets: "It's the power of Christ. The power of  
Christ compels you. HOLY GHANDI AND FRIED CHICKEN ON A  
STICK!" They chant the phrase repeatedly, and sprinkle  
more holy water - producing reddish-raw sores on her  
skin. She slowly sinks back down onto the bed.  
Vendetta binds her wrists - she retaliates by striking  
him from behind. The forces of the demon are unleashed  
- a back-lit demonic Janus Zeal statue appears behind  
her.  
Exhausted by the disgusting ordeal, the two priests  
rest before starting again. They stagger out of the  
bedroom, and the frail Father Breck takes his  
much-needed heart medicine. Vendetta returns to the  
bedroom where Rach has transformed herself into a  
vision of his mother seated upright on the bed and  
wearing a white nightgown. As he wipes Rach's  
forehead, she speaks in his mother's voice to taunt  
him: "Venny, why did you do this to me? Please venny,  
I'm afraid." He is tormented by the likeness to his  
mother's voice and screams: "You're not my mother!"  
Breck, who has returned to the bedroom, cautions him  
to leave the bedroom: "Don't listen...Get out!"  
Downstairs, Xell asks Vendetta about their progress:  
"Is it over?" and "Is she going to die?" He answers in  
a determined tone before returning upstairs: "No." The  
doorbell sounds (it signals the arrival of Lt. Spark)  
- another portent of bad news. When Vendetta joins  
Father Breck in the bedroom, it is too late - the old  
priest is slumped over the bed, dead of a heart  
attack. Rach is sitting up against one of the padded  
bedposts - smiling and giggling. The enraged priest  
assaults her and throws her to the floor, shouting:  
"You son-of-a-bitch!" He punches her repeatedly in the  
face with his fist and tries to kill her.  
In a supremely self-sacrificial act during the  
cathartic finale - an indication that he has regained  
his own faith through his contact with Father Breck  
and by the undeniable realization that the Devil  
really exists - the formerly-rebellious priest  
Vendetta taunts the demon inside Rach. He provokes and  
welcomes the demon to leave her body and come into his  
own so that he can destroy the Evil,  
"Take me. Come into me. God-damn you. Take me. Take  
me."  
She grabs and rips the amulet medal from his neck. At  
the moment of his own possession, he suddenly pulls  
back, his body trembles and his eyes roll up, and his  
face momentarily takes on the appearance of Rach's  
demon - he growls and tumbles backwards. On the floor,  
Rach has regained her former self, and her stifled  
cries are made in her own voice, but she is terrorized  
by the demon within Vendetta. Now that he is filled  
with the beast-monster, he stands and staggers toward  
her with his arms outstretched to strangle her - but  
with all his own fortitude and strength, he screams:  
"No!" as he battles Janus Zeal's attempt to kill her.  
He hurls himself toward the bedroom window - his body  
is thrown through the glass and he falls to his death  
on the steep concrete steps below. Vendetta gives his  
own life to save Rach's spirit and life, with the  
promise of being reborn.  
From the bedroom window, Lt. Spark views Vendetta's  
bloodied body at the foot of the Prospect Street  
steps. Rach cries hysterically, but she is cured. With  
police cars and bystanders crowding around, Father  
Sinko breaks through and grabs Vendetta's hand,  
beseeching him: "Do you want to make a confession? Are  
you sorry for having offended God with all the sins of  
your past life?" Signalling his assent, Vendetta  
unclenches and grips Sinko's hand. Sinko absolves him  
of his sins during the administration of last rites.  
The price or cost of Rach's recovery to sanity and  
wholeness is that both priests die during the  
exorcism.  
***  
A few weeks later, the steps are cleaned up, and the  
housekeeper packs luggage in the car for the MacNeil's  
return to their home in Los Angeles. The house is  
being packed for the move. As Pixie bids Xell a final  
goodbye, she hands her the amulet medal that she found  
in Rach's bedroom. In the driveway, Xell meets Father  
Sinko, telling him that Rach mercifully remembers  
nothing of the ordeal,  
"She doesn't remember any of it."  
Sinko replies, "That's good."  
A normal, cheerful, healthy-looking pre-teen, still  
with bruises on her face - joins them. After she sees  
Father Sinko's clerical collar, she kisses the  
Father's cheek as if to say - thank you. Xell stops  
the car after they have driven a block away and  
engages in a brief exchange with the Father. She gives  
him the amulet medal as a remembrance and parting  
gift: "I thought you'd like to keep this." His cupped  
hand accepts and encloses the medal as they drive  
away.  
Sinko solemnly pauses at the top of the stairs, just  
below the boarded up window of Rach's bedroom. The  
"Tubular Bells" theme plays.  
  
The End 


End file.
